


You Made a Rebel

by Phoenix_Grl_1412



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A+ Parenting, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Choices we make are Important, Gen, Growing Up, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Grl_1412/pseuds/Phoenix_Grl_1412
Summary: They could have been so many things. They could have been copies of those who raised them.They chose differently.**A character study (sort of?) about growing up under pressure, the legacies our parents leave us, and the choices we make.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Neville Longbottom

He grew up with comparisons. Heard them muttered by relatives who hid their mouths with their hands; as if that meant he couldn’t hear them when he was standing in the room with them.

“…Frank was levitating furniture by the time he was this old…”

“…doesn’t look a thing like him, have you seen those fat cheeks…”

“…no confidence at all, that boy, the poor thing. Frank was always so lively…”

It took him a long time, longer than it should have, to realize everyone was talking about him. And the one they always compared him too, Frank? His father, who Neville could not remember properly.

The disappointment on people’s faces when they realized that Neville wasn’t good at anything, that he wasn’t smart or fun like his father, always caused him to hide further and deeper inside his greenhouses.

He listened, every day, to his grandmother and his great uncles discussing how Frank was so much better than Neville ever was. And he carried the weight of their words on his shoulders, day in and day out, shoulders stooping from the unmet expectations.

In his greenhouse he could shed those expectations. Inside with the plants, who had no expectations for him, he could be Neville Longbottom. And it didn’t matter to them one bit if he was a disappointment or a success or even a hairless monkey.

But even with his solace of the greenhouses and herbology, their words hurt. He wanted to be as great as his father. As kind, as wonderful, as loved as he was. For once he wanted his Gran to look at him and say she was proud of him, or that she loved him, or that he’d done well.

Just once, he wanted to hear her say it.

It didn’t happen.

By the time he was ready to go to Hogwarts, he had almost given up trying.

He wanted to be like his father, to be recognized as the son of the great Frank Longbottom. But a part of him, so small and fragile, desperately wanted to be seen as himself. He wanted to make them proud of a boy named Neville. He was handed a wand and told that if it was good enough for Frank, it was good enough for him.

And he accepted it graciously and with reverence, even if a voice in the back of his mind was whispering “My name isn’t Frank.”

And some part of him decided, that day, that he’d had enough. He would make them see Neville, even if they didn’t like what they saw, or he’d make them see Frank, especially if they liked what they saw. But one way or another, the comparisons would come to an end.

His father was a Gryffindor, but Neville thought he might be best suited for Hufflepuff. He was self-aware enough to know that he wasn’t brave or smart or ambitious, so where else would he go? But his father, his father was brave. He would try for Gryffindor but he would accept his fate with grace and aplomb.

Frank excelled at Potions and Defense. Neville would do his best in both subjects and hopefully outshine his father’s achievements in those classes.

Frank was Quidditch Captain and Keeper. Neville would be a Prefect, maybe even Head Boy, but only because he knew he was pants at Quidditch and even worse on a broom. He would be a leader and role model, just like his father, even if it wasn’t in the same things.

The moment that hat rested on his head, it began deciding where to put him. It bypassed Ravenclaw and Slytherin without much consideration, if any at all. After some thought, it decided that Gryffindor was the place for Neville. But he couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t brave, and he was a near-squib, how could he be in that house? He even asked the Hat if it was sure he wasn’t Hufflepuff bound.

The Hat, of course, pointed out that arguing with him was a type of courage, and off to the lion’s table he went. When he’d written home to his Gran about it, all she’d said was she was glad he was upholding at least one family tradition. He’d turned red when he’d read it, feeling numb despite the warmth spreading through his cheeks.

And despite his unexpected start, he thought he’d be able to follow the rest of his plan. After all, there were no more whispers to mock him. Here, he could learn how to act like his father in peace, without the attention of those that had known Frank.

But it wasn’t to be.

Instead, he listened to every professor tell his housemate, “You look so much like your father, but you have your mother’s eyes.” It came at least once a week, sometimes twice, for almost the entire year. He couldn’t blame Harry, it wasn’t his fault, and Neville knew that. But it didn’t mean he didn’t want to.

A part of him raged, deep inside even though he smiled shyly on the outside. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t they see it in him? What was so wrong with him that they didn’t even look at him, didn’t even try to see what might be there, hidden beneath the surface?

“Don’t I look like my father, too?” His heart whispers into the darkness, hoping for the answer as much as he dreads it.

Several years pass. And eventually, he finds himself in a situation he hadn’t anticipated. He’d planned to become just like his father since he was sorted Gryffindor. He’d tried so hard, too, to make his Gran and the others proud of him for being just like his father.

But instead, he’d begun to grow into himself just as much as he’d become like his father. He had friends, some in his house but mostly from Hufflepuff. He led a study group for the younger years in Herbology; not a class his father excelled in. He wasn’t powerful, but he knew that. And while he didn’t get everything right away like his father had, he put in the effort and got it eventually.

Except for Potions, but we don’t talk about that.

He even thinks that, if he continues like he is, he might have a fair shot at Prefect in a couple years.

He realizes that by becoming Neville, by becoming himself, he cannot be his father. His family cannot be proud of a boy named Neville, but they are proud of boys like Frank. There is no possibility of becoming both; it is one or the other.

And he doesn’t know who he is now or who he will become. He’s always known that he wanted to be Frank, wanted to be like his father. But then, a part of him starts to think that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad to be Neville.

He’s caught in a strange place, conflicted by two desires that he’s held close for as long as he can remember. His desire to be his father and the hidden-but-not-new desire to be himself, the desire to be recognized as one or the other.

Two desires: one strong but growing weaker, one weak but gaining strength every day. They wear him down because they cannot exist at the same time. It is a thing not so easily reconciled.

For the next few years, he lives with it. He lives with the comments and comparisons at home, about how he is never enough, but they don’t seem to hurt as much as they once did. And at school, he listens to his friend be told the very thing Neville craves to hear, wanting to know his father lives on in him, even if the desire to hear it isn’t as intense as it once was. He endures everyone who looks through him, who doesn’t acknowledge him as anything worth paying attention to.

He survives the bullies and the taunts of _squib_ and _worthless_ and _not good enough_ that year. And even though it isn’t quite what they mean, all he hears is “you’re nothing like your father.”

He isn’t sure how to feel about that.

And then they find themselves in war. Sure, it isn’t to their door just yet, and most of the wizarding world is too stubborn to believe Harry, who bears the brunt of the taunts and jeers now.

And when fifth year comes around and he isn’t selected as Prefect, the crushing disappointment never comes. It still stings, but he knows it won’t last. By the end of the year, his Gran isn’t as ashamed of him, and it bothers him that it took a reckless decision, a smattering of Death Eaters, and his potential death for him to finally be worth anything in her eyes.

She’s so proud of him, in fact, that she buys him a new wand. It is in that moment, when he first performs a spell with a wand that is his only, that he realizes that perhaps he wasn’t the problem. Things come easier, now, with this wand that is perfect for a boy named Neville. It is not suitable for boys named Frank.

And he realizes that maybe, just maybe, he isn’t meant to be an exact replica of his father.

Before long, there is no time to listen for whispers that mean nothing. In these days of what should have been his seventh year, hiding amongst the secret passages, listening keeps you alive. There is no time for insults or mockery, for immature notions, or for comparisons. There is only time for who’s got detention with what Death Eater and who is likely to be tortured next.

So, he stops listening. To his Gran, if he hears from her, or to anyone that ever said he was less. It is not a conscious decision, but something he realized late one night when trying to fall asleep in one of the secret passageways. They don’t matter, he realizes, and most of them stand on the opposite side of this fight than he does. He’s always been full of self-doubt and insecurity, and the day comes, far past when it should have, that he realizes he shouldn’t have listened to them for as long as he had.

What does it matter if he isn’t his father? What does it matter that his real strength is herbology and kindness?

What does anything matter?

He’s seen war and death and pain. He’s seen the bravery of the smallest acts and the cowardice in the largest ones. He learns to stand when others won’t and speaks when others remain silent. He’s had enough of being ignored, of wishing and waiting for others to see him.

Well, they’re going to see him now.

His father, the brave Gryffindor, would have charged right in and gotten himself killed; he’s sure of it. And when teachers, who are supposed to protect and guide you, are the ones causing the suffering, when children walk the halls wearing bruises not from Quidditch but from dark magic, he can understand the urge.

But this is a different game, a different time and a different war, and Neville has never been Frank.

So he hides, and waits, and rescues everyone he can. He arranges food and comfort and safety, as best he can. He identifies plants and other herbs that can be used in Healing Potions and other important potions that will keep them alive for that much longer. He offers a shoulder to cry on when things get rough. When they want to give up he keeps them moving, and when he wants to end it all they remind him why he can’t.

And he remembers that he isn’t the only one fighting. That as he leads the effort in the school, protecting the next generation, his friend is out there, too, doing his part to stop the madness.

And when his friend is gone, Neville doesn’t give up. Though his heart aches, anger rushes through his veins at the thought that another of his friends has been lost to this madman. He keeps fighting, because he will keep going until he has nothing left to give. He keeps on for Harry and Colin and Fred and Lavender and even for Professor Lupin.

Because these are the final moments of this war, one way or another, and he will always give everything he has to this cause.

And when a sword finds itself in his hands, Neville uses it to destroy that damn snake once and for all.

When it’s over, when it is really, truly over, he cries. In relief, in joy, in sorrow for those who are gone.

Fred, Lavender, Colin, Lupin, Tonks.

And when he sees his Gran again, for the first time in months, she grabs him and holds him. _Just like Frank_ , she says, and _how proud he would be of you, Neville_.

But the words don’t bother him as much as they used to. They’re words, said by a woman who has lived in the past for so long, she doesn’t know what’s right in front of her. They compare him too a man who lived an entirely different life than Neville has.

He isn’t proud of all the choices he’s made, but he knows he’s made the best ones he could. He’s been the best he can be, no matter what was going on around him, and he’s proud of _himself._

He isn’t Frank, not by a longshot, but he’s finally reached a point where he doesn’t want to be.


	2. Ginny Weasley

Ginny is synonymous with red hair and Gryffindor, Quidditch and Bat-Bogey Hexes, strength and ferocity.

Ginny is not synonymous with _Arthur_ or _Molly_ or _Weasley_.

When people hear Weasley they might first think of her father in the Ministry. Arthur is calm and level-headed, trustworthy and honest with a love of all things muggle. He has a kind nature and smiles easily, happy when those he loves are happy. A good man and a good father, though some might say he has more children than he can afford.

Some hear Weasley and think of Molly. A mother to the very bone, to whom nearly everyone is too skinny and needs fattening up. An excellent cook with a fierce protective streak. She takes the orphaned and the unwanted, the lonely and the weary, and gathers them in her arms. She holds them close and gives them the love they deserve.

Others still might think of her brothers. Of the eldest, Bill, the Gringotts curse breaker whose wife is part veela. Of Charlie, whose love for dragons is just as identifying as his red hair. Of Percy in the Ministry, who reunited with his family before it was too late. Of George and his joke shop; half of a pair that would never again be complete. Of Ron, the war hero. If they think of Ginny, it is only because she is the first female Weasley in generations or that she’s married to the Boy-Who-Lived.

No matter who they thought of, most people would agree on a few things about the Weasley family. Living in poverty, perhaps, but rich with love. A warm home with welcoming and open-minded relatives; more love and more happiness than any one person would know what to do with.

Ginny doesn’t always feel like she deserves the reputation her family has earned.

Ginny is passion and fury; she dares you to mess with anyone she calls hers. She is justice and strength; no one will be tormented or bullied within her sight. She has a calm strength about her, one you wouldn’t expect, and a darkness that she will never be rid of. She can’t trace these traits to her mother or her father, to her brothers or other relatives.

She knows what it’s like to feel like you’re not in charge of your own head.

Ginny was only eleven when stared Death in the face. She’d blinked, her fate sealed, and knew her heart would shrivel in her chest, would stop beating entirely, before it exploded outward and Ginny Weasley would be no more. She’d shivered and quaked, waiting, knowing that her last moments would be of no importance to anyone and unable to fight it. By a miracle she’d been saved, back then, by a boy with a sword. She’s sworn that the next time Death stared her down, she would make sure that Death blinked first.

She has seen herself at the breaking point. She has looked around at the pieces of her that lay scattered about like someone’s garbage, waiting to be rearranged into something someone else could _use_. She’d put herself together time and time again, telling herself that next time, she would not break. Not ever again. Over time her strength repairs the cracks she’s missed, the love of her family filling in the rest of the empty spaces where things like compassion and vulnerability once dwelled.

Ginny trusted, once. She thought she’d found someone who understood her, who believed in her when she saw no reason to believe in herself. Tom had been her everything, and she had trusted him.

But Tom had used her. He’d taken the childish trust she’d placed in him and used her. He’d used her to hurt people, to hurt her friends. She would have never forgiven him for it, even before learning who he really was, and she would never forgive herself.

How could little Ginny Weasley ever put her faith in another person, when Tom’s betrayal had shaped her entire being and had changed her life forever? How can she know that they won’t use her or that her thoughts are her own? The truth of the matter is that she can’t.

Ginny is not her father; calm and reliable and too caring for his own good. She is not Molly, who gives out unconditional love to anyone who might need it.

She does not think she could ever welcome someone into her family without hesitation or second thought. It is not that she does not love or trust, but that she has seen what happens when such things are given too freely. War is an excellent teacher, if unkind, and she’d learned her lesson a long time ago.

She is grateful to the parents who raised her; who protected her and gave her the same unconditional love as her siblings, despite what she’d done; who helped her learn to become the person she is now. She loves her parents, but their warmth is suffocating, too much on days she feels she doesn’t deserve their love.

Let her parents and her siblings welcome everyone with love and open arms. She will welcome you with politeness and caution, at least until she knows that you are no threat to those she loves. Ginny cannot bring herself to welcome easily or unconditionally, but once there, she will protect you with every fiber of her being.

Sometimes she sees traces of her mother in herself, when she cooks for her family and adds an extra place setting for Teddy or Scorpius, just in case. In moments when she catches herself smiling, just because she hears her children laughing, she can feel her father smiling with her.

She is Ginny, not Ginerva or Gin. Not Weasley or Potter or anything else.

She is not Arthur or Molly. She is not her parents.

But she is Ginny, and maybe that’s okay.


	3. Draco Malfoy

When people see his sharp features and his slick backed blonde hair, they know who he is. _Malfoy,_ they sneer, disgust dripping from the mouths that once held reverence, respect, and even fear.

They see Draco and they think of Lucius, with his sharp features and long blonde hair. They think of his eyes that hold only coldness and disdain; they think of his impeccable manners and his impeccable clothing; of his attitude of arrogance and superiority; they think of his hands, so willing to fill another’s pockets with gold if it meant bending the world to his whims.

They do not think of his mother, who has sharp features and silky, dark hair. They do not think of her blue eyes or her quiet fierceness.

_She was one of them,_ they shout. They do not understand.

Narcissa made her choices. It was never a choice between Dark and Light, or even between right or wrong. When forced to choose, Narcissa chose life. Hers, at first, at the cost of others. Her son’s, later, at the cost of her own. But choosing life does not always mean living. It does not mean that death is any further than it was before. Sometimes compliance is survival, even when you condemn yourself at the same time. Sometimes defiance, however small it might be, and no matter what you might think, is simply too dangerous.

He is his mother’s son. He has her complexion and her fierceness, her blood in his veins and her thirst for life. When faced with the same choices his mother was faced with over a decade ago, Draco made the same choices. He chose compliance to his father. He chose the Dark. He chose safety and life, even if it would not last forever. And like her, he chose defiance, at the end when it mattered most.

He is his father’s son. He has his facial features and his impeccable taste, his thirst for more and his arrogance. They look at Draco and they see Lucius.

But Draco is not either of his parents, Draco is so much more than either of them. His arrogance comes not from his blood status, but his belief that he himself is better than others. He followed his father’s path but could not commit himself entirely to a cause he had supported out of fear. He is a physical miniature of his father, but that is not all he is. He has made his own choices, his own mistakes, and wakes up day after day. He looks at his scars, he sees what he has become and what he has come from, and dresses for the day.

He looks in the mirror and sees his father’s face, then looks at his only son and sees it there, too. He sees it in Scorpius’ blonde hair and his grey eyes, his sharp features a likeness of Draco’s own, though softened by the child’s mother.

Draco feared his father, once upon a time, many moons ago. In some ways, he still does. First, he feared the man himself. He feared his anger and his wand and his sharp tongue. Then he feared what the man represented: a life of servitude, of fear and death and violence. And now, he fears the man living on in him, in his son, and never leaving them in peace.

But just as Draco is not his father, Scorpius is not Lucius, either. He is not arrogant or cruel. His fashion taste is questionable, but his manners are impeccable. He is just and loyal and brave, and some days Draco wonders how the boy ever managed to be sorted into Slytherin.

Scorpius has friends of all kinds. He discusses schoolwork with the Nott boy and holds a study group with a muggleborn witch. He talks about muggle authors and music with his year mates. His best friend is not only a halfblood but a Potter to boot. And it makes no difference to Scorpius. Scorpius is not Draco, nor is he Lucius. He isn’t fearful or fearsome, and his only concern regarding blood is that it stays where it belongs: inside him.

And when Scorpius brings home a red-haired witch, he knows instantly who has his son’s affections.

Rose Granger-Weasley has her father’s red hair but is just like her mother in looks and intelligence. She is everything that Lucius would have hated.

Draco welcomes her into their home. Over dinner he asks questions, perhaps not enough and perhaps not the right ones, but he tries, to learn from his son and not his father.

Draco is not perfect. He still makes mistakes, but he’s trying to do better.

He is not his father, or his mother, and that is what matters.


	4. Dudley Dursley

If his father were standing here right now, Dudley knows exactly what the man would do.

He would tear up that letter, shout and scream and rage until everyone had given up the idea of a school for magical children, not out of a belief that he was right, but out of fear of what he would do if they didn’t.

Vernon Dursley abhorred anything that didn’t follow his definition of normal. Every Dursley was like that, including his mother, Petunia, who had married into the family.

According to the Dursley family, people could be divided into two categories: Normal folks and Freaks. Freaks are evil, unnatural, and should be locked up. They hurt people and destroy the lives of perfectly Normal individuals. They corrupt, and they lie, and they steal, and they don’t even feel remorse for it. They are the monsters, and anyone who is a Freak deserves whatever they get.

Dudley saw proof of this belief, time and time again, in that cookie-cutter house on Privet Drive. His parents had taught him, whether intentionally or not, that his cousin had deserved it. Strange things happened around Freaks, and strange things had happened around the boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs.

Dudley has always known exactly what category he and his parents fell into. He thought he knew what category his wife and children fell into, even if he no longer believed all the nonsense his father spouted over the years as he once had.

He thought he knew, but he didn’t.

Because here she stands, with blonde curls and green eyes he’s seen on only one other person. She is eleven years old and holding a letter addressed in a familiar green ink that he hasn’t seen since that July, all those years ago.

Everything he knew has shifted on its axis in that single moment, and he’s faced with a choice he never thought he’d have to make.

Can he hate a child he loves so dearly?

He knows the answer without hesitation. It seems so complicated, but really, it is a simple question with a simple answer. He knows that if he had become the man his father had intended him to be, it would still be a simple answer, even if it wouldn’t be the same answer he’d give today.

The answer is no, he can’t.

His little Daisy is beautiful, a masterpiece he would give his last breath to keep safe. She loves to laugh and smile and bake with her mother and color with her younger brother and play football with her father. She’s young enough that she hasn’t realized that the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and Dudley hopes that revelation never comes.

All he can do is hug her, holding her close as he tells her about his cousin and a magical school that’s waiting for her arrival. He tells her about adventures and magic and being a witch.

And even though he is terrified of what’s next, even though he doesn’t know how to keep her safe in this world he knows nothing about, he can’t help but smile because she is smiling.

Dudley is a Dursley. He will always be a Dursley, and he will always know what is Normal and what is Not. And if his definition of normal is a little more magical, well, that’s his choice.

His father doesn’t decide for him. Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Surprise, I'm not dead!
> 
> This is something I've been playing with for a while, and finally got around to posting. The first is definitely my favorite, though the others are acceptable, I think. Let me know what you think.
> 
> I hope to be more active in the coming year, editing and improving some of what I did manage to write in good old 2019. The next installment of the "when things change" series is in the works, if you've been patiently waiting for it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


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